Heating Up For A New Future

Here is a photo of Grace on a large fallen oak tree in one of the near by parks. After being inside for a lot of the winter the children have been spending a lot of time out side running around and just enjoying an early warm Spring. I was doing the supper dishes with Pearl when Rain asked me if I would play with them. I told her I would when Pearl and I finished up the dishes. We went out to the front porch and played several games of Four in Row. This was followed by a short game of freeze tag along with Dove and Grace. Then we took a long night time walk around the neighborhood. It was about 70 degrees when we took our walk.

I have been pretty freaked out in general by this off the charts warm weather we have been having. I have wondered what this summer could be like if we are seeing temperatures 40 degrees above normal now, what would it be like for us to hit 125 degrees in July? What would we do if we had massive crop failures this summer and animal die offs? The way I see it is we are living in a industrial age completely dependent on burning fossil fuels with little connection or regard for the natural world. It seems to me that we need to have a complete transformation of our culture if we are going to have a future for our children to inhabit.

I visited several different manufacturing companies last week as part of the Leadership Grand Rapids program I am going through this year. At each plant I visited I asked what they were planning to do about the increasing demand around the world for fossil fuels just at the time when we are reaching past our ability to get enough out of the ground. At every site I found my questioning dismissed with replies that seemed to reflect very short term thinking. These companies have just barely survived the economic after shocks from the Wall Street implosion of '08. They are just really glad that things are picking up again and they have been able to bring back some of the people they had to lay off in '09. These are companies that are all needing people to buy cars and lots of them in order to stay solvent. But what are these cars gonna run on and what about all these emissions into our atmosphere? We can't find alternative sources of energy to replace what we have become dependent on with fossil fuels to maintain the life style we are used to having. It almost seems like we will have to shut down these plants and get these men and women out in nature learning to grow food. Perhaps we can develop a life style that is more like the Amish in the way they can flourish with out much electricity, gasoline or natural gas. We have to change drastically or we won't be able to survive the future that is barreling down on us like a fast train.

Our family has been with out a car now for six years. We have turned our yard into an micro urban farm complete with laying hens, meat rabbits and honey bees. We created a root cellar. We have become urban survivalists preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. I would love to hear what you are thinking regarding our future as we continue to break heat records by very large margins all across the Eastern and Midwestern states.